Four free apps that will help you make a difference

We all get the guilts over the time we spend staring at that tiny screen in our hand, but we often overlook how we can use our devices as a force for change.

With that in mind, we’ve collected five great apps from a range of different fields that can help make a difference in today’s world.

Now, there’s a lot of rubbish out there, but also a lot of good, and we don’t pretend to know it all. So we encourage you to use this post as a good place to start your own altruistic app hunting journey.

Good On You

Photo Credit: Good On You

With the tagline “Discover ethical brand ratings in the palm of your hand”, the Good On You app wants to help make ethical clothes shopping easier and less daunting – particularly for those of us who don’t know where to begin.

The app allows you to search for brands (by store or product), then gives a rating based on how good said brand is to your fellow humans, animals and the environment.

Much more than a platform for finger-pointing, the app connects you to the people and brands who are trying hard to produce ethical and sustainable products.

The Good On You team work with more than 70 ethical fashion labels, making it a valuable tool for conscious-consumers.

Sustainable Seafood

We all love downing a morsel of succulent lemon-zested salmon, or your favourite restaurant’s Fish-of-the-Day special. But what a lot of us don’t realise is that seafood, or rather how and where we catch it, is one of biggest ethical concerns facing the food industry.

The Sustainable Seafood app is Australia’s first online guide hoping to help Aussie seafood consumers make smarter shopping choices, such as finding fish that is farmed with minimal environmental impact.

The app uses the tried-and-tested traffic light system, scoring your seafood as either ‘Better’, ‘Eat Less’, or just a straight out ‘No’. Simply enter the name of the fishy friend you wish to research and Sustainable Seafood will give you information on what’s available (and how it’s farmed), along with options considered ‘Better’!

Invoice2Go

Now, this app is a bit of a wild card. Invoice2Go isn’t an app that’s going to change the world per-say, but rather an app designed to help out the little guys. More specifically, it’s aimed at helping small business owners.

Created by Chris Strode, a freelance programmer, this app is designed to help you generate, send, and keep track of your invoices in the most convenient and simple way possible.

We threw this one in here to remind you that there are also a whole host of apps out there to help you manage your time and money more effectively. And if you can manage your money well, then, in theory, you’ll have more to give, right?

Bonus app: Shop Ethical!

This app isn’t free, but bear with us. Created by The Ethical Consumer Group, this app is all about helping you find a range of ethical products available in Australia.

Shop Ethical! is essentially an information treasure chest – providing details on the environmental and social record of companies behind the big Aussie brand names. Each company is awarded a rating, which is then accompanied by specific information relevant to why they were given the said rating.